


The Key of the World

by OldShrewsburyian



Category: Jodhaa-Akbar (2008)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Elephants, Established Relationship, F/M, Historical References, How Do I Tag, Hunters & Hunting, Light Angst, Married Couple, Pregnancy, Sieges, War, and feelings about mughals, excessive references to the akbarnama, gratuitous romanticism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:07:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28465038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldShrewsburyian/pseuds/OldShrewsburyian
Summary: December 1568-May 1969: Jalaluddin undertakes a campaign, and worries about his wife. Also, there are elephants, and probably more sixteenth-century politics than most people care about. Expanded from a first sentence prompt by AllegoriesInMediasRes.
Relationships: Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar/Mariam-uz-Zamani | Jodhaa Bai
Comments: 8
Kudos: 17





	The Key of the World

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AllegoriesInMediasRes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllegoriesInMediasRes/gifts).



Jodhaa has entered his chambers, looking like death. The emperor makes a gesture of surprise before he thinks to stop himself. Only then does he step forward to greet his wife ceremoniously, as she deserves, catching both her hands in his.

She speaks before he can: “Forgive me, lord, but must you go into the hill country?”

He frowns slightly. “The preparations have been long,” he says wearily, “and those whom I appointed have failed.” Jodhaa continues to gaze at him like a stricken thing, her dark eyes wide and her pallor alarming. 

Jalaluddin sighs, and takes her into his arms, where she trembles. The day for departure is auspicious, but he knows better than to offer this to his wife as comfort. The hour is late, and he is tired, and he finds he cannot marshal phrases of reassurance. “Many times I have washed my hands of my life, and still I live,” would hardly suit the purpose. “Who else shall do it, where so many have failed?” Alarming, or arrogant, or both. And he finds that he cannot tease her, not now and not here.

“I have won other cities,” he says finally, “and other battles.”

“I know.” He can tell that she has been holding back tears; they soak, now, into the silk he is wearing.

He gathers her more closely into his arms. “It seems to me that in the pursuit of virtue,” he says, rather hesitantly, “the idea of death ought not to be entertained.” Jodhaa gives a small sob. “How can we build a better kingdom here,” he continues, desperately, “if we do not quell dissension elsewhere?”

“I know,” says Jodhaa; “I know.” She is still shaking.

“I love you,” says the emperor, very softly. And strangely, though this has nothing to do with the campaign against Ranthambhor or the mind of its turbulent ruler, Jodhaa relaxes against him.

“I know that, too,” she says at last.

Jalaluddin sighs, and kisses her hair. “Lie with me,” he says, after several moments, and feels her sharply indrawn breath. “Not…” he adds quickly, and swallows. “I make no demands,” he clarifies. Jodhaa remains very still. “I will have my surfeit of giving orders very soon,” he says. “Lie with me.” And he feels her nod against him.

He takes his time with the pins and folds of her silks. He tries not to let her feel that he is doing so with more than a lover’s deliberation. She knows him so well that he tries not even to think that it might be the last time he has the privilege of unwinding the heavy folds from around her waist, allowing his hands to skim her hips. He kisses her, and does not remark on her weeping. To his relief, she falls asleep quickly. There is only a thin sliver of moon above the walls of the fortress; for what feels like a long time, he lies awake, watching her face in the darkness.

* * *

Before turning towards Ranthambhor, he stops in Delhi. He distributes alms, and prays at shrines, and tries to forget the fear in Jodhaa’s face. He hunts after the manner of his ancestors, watching the faces of his men as they approach their prey. He puts spurs to his bay, and tries not to think about the bloodshed at Chitor. He hopes that such another victory will not be necessary. But defeat, of course, is not to be thought of.

Some weeks after departing Delhi, they experience a catastrophe and an omen. The elephant Mansukha, mind’s delight, becomes maddened. No one, it seems, is to blame for this terrible betrayal of the beast’s nature; he simply charges, and lifts another elephant on his tusks. It is a sight to stop the heart and the breath. Having shed blood, Mansukha gradually calms; the other beast dies after two days. Akbar pays its owner handsomely. But this is not the end. The man continues to go about with clouded face. The dead elephant, the emperor learns, had a female companion. And she has stopped eating. Akbar goes to her himself, and strokes her, and talks to her keepers. He learns that she has refused her fodder, and the rice they have prepared for her, and even water. And on the third day after her mate’s death, she dies. The keepers shake their heads, and say that this is not uncommon, for the gentle beasts to die of grief. The emperor clenches his hands at his sides, and says nothing. But he finds himself thinking of the incident, as the army wends its way by deliberate stages into the hills.

They reach Ranthambhor at last when winter is on the turn, and pitch camp shadowed by the cliffs that surround the fort like armor. In Agra, Jalaluddin thinks, Jodhaa will be celebrating the feast of Pir, and her hands will smell of ginger. He tries to fill his mind instead with the image of the high fortress with the stars wheeling above it as a thing conquerable. 

Accompanied only by a few men, he goes out to examine the hill itself. “Chughtai Khan.”

“Yes, Shahenshah.”

“I want this surrounded so that not even the wind can enter.”

His general smiles, transforming his weatherbeaten face. “Yes, Shahenshah.”

But for all that — for all the thunder of cannon, and their wheat-consuming fire — the army is still encamped at Ranthambhor when spring comes. Jalaluddin walks the batteries in daytime, and gazes on the hill at night. And around the unchanging array of battle the first buds open, followed by roses with hearts of fire. The explosions of cannon look pale by comparison. It occurs to him to wish, briefly, that he could write to Jodhaa, and press a rose between folded sheets of paper. Such words as are in his mind are not for the pens of imperial scribes. 

The birds sing earlier each day, and the full moon rises, and Ranthambhor still stands. With the breath of early spring around him, and the joyous dawn birdsong deafening, as if in defiance of guns, Jalaluddin decides that a new strategy is necessary.

“Todar Mal,” he says, to the man still rubbing sleep out of his eyes, “I want sabats.”

Todar Mal yawns prodigiously. “Forgive, Shahenshah… sabats?”

“Yes.” He suppresses his impatience. “The terrain will not yield to us. So we shall make new terrain. Stone-cutters, carpenters… give the order.”

Todar Mal bows, and nearly trips on his tent flap. And a week later, there are covered ramps leading to the fort. Thence the cannon thunder again. But the walls are breached, and houses are destroyed, and still the ruler of Ranthambhor does not surrender.

“Stiff-necked idiot,” mutters Jalaluddin. Chughtai Khan coughs. “Send a messenger and tell him this: if the garrison do not come out to give themselves up to us, we’ll target the fort itself. Let’s see what he makes of that.”

The peace-making, in the end, is a messy business. The princes who come to give homage are defended — superfluously, dangerously — by a man convinced that the Mughals will kill them. It is one of Bhagwant Das’ men who takes him on, first shouting counsel and then crossing swords with him, all the while proceeding to proclaim that he himself is friend to the Mughals and the Rajputs alike. There is a touch of farce about it, as well as deadly danger. But the man, far from listening, fights his way towards the royal tent like one possessed. Jalaluddin watches, and thinks of the maddened elephant, lifting another on its tusks. The man is struck down in the end, as he must be, and the emperor pardons the princes, whose faces are pale with fear.

They attend him when the army finally departs. The province is secured, the victorious army is sent back to the capital, and Jalaluddin accepts the hospitality of his brother-in-law. He hunts, and gives offerings to shrines. He feasts on the dishes that Jodhaa has taught him to appreciate, and he gives to Bhagwant Das gifts of a magnificence that has long since ceased to be necessary to cement their affection. This too is part of the campaign. Perhaps this display of friendship, as much as the cannon on their ramps, will cement the latest conquest of a Rajput province. But Jalaluddin still thinks of the princes' guard, unappeased; against his will, he still thinks of the elephant who was killed, and of the one who died grieving.

* * *

At last, on a day of blazing heat, he dismounts in the courtyard at Agra. In vain he looks for a familiar turn of the head beneath one of the women’s veils, a familiar hand holding a gauzy fold of fabric. Perhaps it is a sin to prefer one of his wives; perhaps it is wisdom. He reflects that he should remember what the Prophet said of such matters. The emperor hands his horse to an attendant, and consciously staves off the exhaustion of relief.

It is Nimat for whom he sends that afternoon.

“May we make bold to observe, majesty, that our great rejoicing at your return…”

“You may, o screen of chastity,” says Jalaluddin wryly. “But if you must do it at length, perhaps later, when your emperor is less dusty.”

Somewhat uncharacteristically, Nimat subsides. The emperor regards the eunuch, whose face is not quite ageless, and smiles. “Jodhaa,” he says simply. “If she is willing. If not…” He hesitates briefly. “If not, you need not return, nor send another.” It is not good policy, of course, to say that he will see her, and her alone. But to be with her is to be at rest. And that, he finds, is what he desires after so many months, more than any perfumed embraces.

Nimat swallows visibly. “Majesty, she…” The hesitation is a shade too long, and Jalaluddin raises his head sharply. He represses the desire to shake Nimat by the shoulders. He does not move, and he does not speak; he tries to make his breathing even. “She may not be well enough to come,” says Nimat decorously, with lowered lids.

After a pause, Jalaluddin answers. “Very well.” He is pleased that his voice is steady. “My orders are as I have given them.”

Nimat bows, and departs, and is the unwitting subject of several very hearty imperial curses. Jalaluddin bathes in rose water; his hair is washed and perfumed; he is dressed in garments that are not slack with overuse, or grimed with dirt. And he thinks of Jodhaa as he last saw her, her eyes hollow and her face pale, and strives to calm the too-rapid beating of his own heart.

The moon is thin again, a mere trace of light in the darkness. The nocturnal whisperings of the fort are strange to him, after so many weeks surrounded by the noises of an army encamped, and the untamed life in the cold hills around them. 

When she comes, he has given her up. He rises, still fully dressed, from his bed, and tries to look dignified, and tries to compose himself to be solicitous, and affectionate, and unafraid.

He has time, in the first moments after she has crossed his threshold, to be grateful that she is standing unsupported. In a low voice she tells her attendants to depart, and he tries to convince himself that he would know, even from that one word, if she had been weak and ill. And then he sees her.

The first thing he realizes is that his mouth has gone dry. His heart beats more rapidly than ever, and he can think of nothing to say. Jodhaa stands before him, to all appearances perfectly composed. She does not move, and she does not speak, and he has time to marvel at her. He looks at her — utterly familiar, and utterly transformed — and finds that his eyes are pricking with tears. She carries her belly before her, luminous as a pearl. And like a man in a dream, he takes one unsteady step, and reaches for her.

“My lord will pardon me,” says Jodhaa, putting her hands in his, “if I do not touch his feet. I am not sure I could get up again.”

For answer, he puts his arms around her. In a strange way, he thinks, it is as though their positions of the winter are reversed, for he weeps helplessly into her hair.

“It is good,” he stammers, “it is good. But I have feared for you all this while, and not known…” 

Jodhaa hums softly, and holds him more tightly. “I thought my lord had lost the power of speech,” she says, and he realizes that what he hears in her voice is satisfaction.

He takes a deep breath. “Yes,” he says nonsensically, “yes. I,” he manages, and then: “You…”

“I,” says Jodhaa firmly, “am perfectly well.”

He puts her gently back from him then, so that he can look her in the eye. She is flushed and smiling, at ease, as though they had not been parted. And the tension goes out of his shoulders, and he bends to kiss her. 

She makes a small noise of pain against his mouth, and he draws back. “Did I…?”

“No,” says Jodhaa, “no”; and she takes his hand, and places it against the startling warmth of her taut skin. “Wait,” says Jodhaa. When the child kicks against his palm, she gives another gasp, and it turns to laughter. “There.”

Jalaluddin takes a shaken breath. “I did not know,” he says; “I did not know what it was, to love you before.”

“You gave a very good impression of it,” observes Jodhaa, not without amusement.

“I did not mean…”

“Shh,” says Jodhaa, and places a finger against his lips. “I know. I know. Now take me to bed; my feet are sore, and it has been too long since I have had you in my arms.”

Smiling he obeys, and kneels to take her slippers off. “I thought,” he says, not looking up at her, “that you looked like death.” He takes a deep breath; he knows she will realize that this is a confession. “When you came to my rooms, before I left for Ranthambhor, it entered into my mind you looked like death.”

She cannot incline to him, as she might once have done; but her fingers come to tangle in his hair. “Like the fear of it,” says Jodhaa simply. “For I was afraid: that these hopes might be disappointed, or that you might die without knowing of their fulfillment.” Wordlessly he lowers his head to her lap. “Come to bed,” says Jodhaa, her hand caressing him. “Come, my love. Come, my lord, and live forever.”

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from the _Akbarnama_ , from a verse coming between the campaign against Ranthambhor and the first flowery allusions to Jodhaa's pregnancy:
> 
> O God, as long as there is a centre to the sky  
> Make not the world vacant of this King  
> May the heavens be his signet ring  
> May the key of the world be in his sleeve.
> 
> I have, of course, considerably embroidered events as given by Abu'l Fazl, and treated characterizations as expansions on what we're shown in the film.
> 
> An image of Akbar's hunt is [here](http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O9612/akbar-hunting-at-palam-near-painting-mukund/), and of the surrender of the rajah after the siege [here](http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O9608/rai-surjan-hada-making-submission-painting-mukund/)


End file.
